Monday, October 05, 2015

I'm not a violent man, so I don't
generally go looking for trouble, but trouble found me one day while
the wife and I worked at a flour mill.

At first, it was a normal work day back
in a time when life was simpler and we were dirt poor. I was
enjoying the simple pleasures of the latest odd job; I was getting to
wear a hair net and pack bags of corn meal into boxes. It was fun
and exciting watching the colorful corn meal bags take the exciting
slide down from the packaging machines to me and my wife's waiting,
loving hands as we gingerly packed them away, patted their cute
little baggy tops and wished them a happy journey and a healthy life.

Incidentally, this was the first time I
had ever seen the additional “beard net” accessory. It was on the
face of one of the supervisors. It looked like he was wearing chin
panties. (Refer to Fig A.) The gentleman I observed didn't seem to
mind all the extra netting wrapped around his head which I knew would
have driven me crazy, possibly causing me to throw myself into one of
the machines and ending up in some poor families' pancakes. But that
wasn't what happened.

Instead, after we finished packing the
corn meal the line shut down and the “chin panty” man rounded up
all the temporary employees and lined us up. Other supervisors came
and assessed us as we stood there. You could feel their eyes upon
your body as they tried to ascertain your abilities for whatever
tasks they needed to be done. People were herded off in one
direction or another and I saw my wife whisked off to some unknown
location in the flour mill. Where she went, I didn't know. Would I
see her again? Maybe. But there are no guarantees in life.

I stopped considering her fate and
tried to stay focused as I was selected and went off in the opposite
direction. The man laughed in my general direction and said
something vague. I don't remember what it was exactly, but he took
me into a concrete room that was directly under the main silo. In
the middle of the chamber was an enormous white bag hanging from 2
great straps under a chute. It was partially full of material and
swayed gently. He told me it was full of flour.

I had never seen such a great whopping
bag of flour such as this, and as interesting as that was, it was
what happened next that surprised me. He told me to push the bag.

“Really? You want me to push the
bag?” I said making sure I heard him correctly.

“Yes give it a shove.” he replied.

I gave it a shove. It swayed a little.
“Harder!” said the man. “Really push it!” So I shoved it
harder, putting more of my body into it. It swayed a little more
than the last time.

“Again!” he commanded. I could tell
he was starting to be disappointed that he chose me to accompany him
as my third attempt looked about as ineffectual as the others.

“Why am I doing this again?” I
asked. He explained that we had to pack in 2000 lbs. Of the flour
into the bag before they shipped it and to make the flour fit, you
had to make it settle down into the bag apparently by abusing it
physically and not just verbally.

He suggested this was a great way to
relieve stress. I secretly didn't agree with him. I was certain it
would not relieve anything, let alone stress. Feeling like I didn't
have a choice, I threw myself into my work (literally). I hurled
myself at this obstinate thing to try to get it to succumb to my
will.

At first I had a hard time getting
motivated to beat on the enormous sack. After all, it hadn't insulted
my mother nor had it pulled a weapon on me. It didn't seem to be
harming anyone, it just hung there, dangling. But as I tried to work
it over I became more and more frustrated with it. My attitude
changed and my resolve to defeat it grew.

I tried leaping on it and I tried
different pushing techniques that I had seen athletes and expectant
mothers perform. I tried putting the 160 pounds of my body behind
every violent shove. I kept repeating my various attacks until my
wrists started to ache. But I kept pushing on it and it started to
sway more and more. At times I would not time my attacks correctly
with the swinging and I would collide with it and nearly get
flattened.

But I never went down. I wouldn’t
give it or the supervisor the satisfaction of seeing me give sway to
the enemy. And my persevering finally paid off. I eventually started
to wear it down and the flour settled down into the bag, but as it
did, the mill man would add more flour and encourage more violence.
He kept watch on the digital readout that was placed on part of the
scale apparatus waiting for it to reach the goal weight.

I grew tired but I kept fighting. I
inwardly groaned as each new addition never seem to put it over the
desired conclusion. I concentrated and lost track of time and
finally the happy moment came. I heard the man say “Stop, that's
enough.” and I saw the magic number on the readout and without any
fanfare, it was over.

My breathing was heavy, my limbs were
tired and I felt like I had just wrestled a giant's scrotum. But it
was over and thankfully, so was the work day. So I turned in my hair
net, found my wife and drove us home. As I reminisced on what had
happened I realized that although technically I had beat the enormous
bag of flour and achieved my goal, I knew in my heart that it had
truly defeated me, because I never wanted to go back for a rematch.